


Hofner and Happiness Hands

by orphan_account



Category: The Beatles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 00:37:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5313194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seeing as today is the anniversary of George's death, I kinda thought this would be appropriate. Just George and Paul through the ages really. Poor Georgie :(:(:(:(:( Enjoy...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hofner and Happiness Hands

**Author's Note:**

> I don't ... *sobs* ... own ... *sobs* ... the Beatles ....   
> *breaks down into floods of tears*

A walk on the way to a bus on the way to a school on the way to a future.

A boy with a great big Höfner guitar case and sticky out ears and a shock of brown hair who walks shyly and smiles shyly but plays well and means well and speaks out well, but a quiet boy, nonetheless. A boy like the guitar he holds. A tuneful, tactful boy, who can be played by others but who makes his own sound, in the end. A Höfner boy. 

Another boy with a pretty, girly face and chubby cheeks and doe-eyes framed with curly lashes that sprints down the street holding his happiness in his hands and his bag over his shoulder on his way to a bus to which he will be almost-late, as he is every morning. No-one notices the redness which stains those eyes, or the black sacks under them which come as a result from watching a dying mother each night without fail. He hides these well. He knows how to. It’s his profession. 

The bus driver greets the Höfner boy with a painted smile and a how-do-you-do? The Höfner boy hands over his money and his name. The driver has already forgotten it by the time the guitar-case and its owner have disappeared down the aisle and found their respective seats.

The late boy clambers up onto the bus just as it signals its leave. He digs his money from his pockets and passes it to the driver, who spits out the boy’s name with exasperation plastered on his amused face, and hands out the change. 

The boy with the red eyes and the happiness hands avoids his friends who slouch at the far end of the bus, smoking and calling his name. He doesn’t feel like talking today. He just wants to sleep and for his mother to get better, though he knows within himself that neither of those wishes will be granted today. He doesn’t have a fairy god-mother who can do such things for him, and even if he did, he wouldn’t let it, because this boy likes to do things for himself. He doesn’t trust others to do his jobs for him.

The Höfner boy looks up as the busses recent addition slumps next to him and hands him a brief grin. He grins back, and makes to move his guitar-case away from the legs of his partner to make more space for the both of them. He didn’t expect someone to take that seat. He doesn’t know whether to be happy or sad about this eventuality, so he picks both and watches the boy with mixed feelings. 

The newcomer leans back in his seat and shuts his eyes, breathing heavily and waiting to catch his breath after the long run to the bus. But he can feel the gaze of his companion boring into him like a lazar, so he opens them again and turns to the stare of the boy on the adjacent seat, who he realises now he has never seen before. He proffers a quick ‘hello’ with all the charm and good-manners his mother taught him when he was younger, then throws a quick smile at him and waits for the reply.

‘Hello.’

Höfner boy blinks, then smiles back. 

‘Hello.’ 

An exchange of names, as the red eyed boy introduces himself as Paul McCartney and the boy with the sticky-out ears and the guitar case offers the name George Harrison. They shake on it. 

A pause ensues, companionable being the best word to describe it, before a question graces the air, courtesy of Mr McCartney, and with the object in question being the guitar case which has propped itself innocently up against the back of the seat in front of it. 

‘Do you play?’

A nod from George. A smile which lingers in the air like the taste of chocolate in the mouth. 

‘Do you?’

‘Yeah.’ 

They bond predominantly over music preferences and guitars at first before the boy with the not-so-red-eyes but the bags of exhaustion under them admits his preference to bass. The other nods. 

‘I can only play guitar.’

‘Yeah?’ 

‘Yeah.’

‘I can play piano, a few chords of guitar, and some bass.’ 

‘Right.’

The bus is stopping at their shared school. The scramble of legs and arms to get off flows like a river down the central aisle, so the boy with the eyes and the boy with the case stay put until the babble has died down and they are able to wave goodbye to the driver and get to class. 

They smile their respective smiles.

They think their respective thoughts.

But when the time comes, they go their respective ways.

oOo 

A boy overflowing with happiness like a boiling pot of emotions.

A boy brimming with sadness and the overwhelming pain of the loss of someone close to him. 

A boy with a smile which is much too large for his face, like the guitar he plays and the voice he carries.

A boy with a churned up stomach and a front to put on. 

A meeting point. 

George Harrison has the ability to make Paul McCartney smile, even when Paul’s mother has just died, even when he wants to curl up in bed and cease to exist.

Paul McCartney has the ability to make George Harrison smile even when George feels like he can’t smile any wider, any longer, any more. 

They’re quite good together.

oOo

They brave America together. Paul wants to hold George’s hand as they descend the platform and he smiles a smile to make the world melt, but he refrains, because he doesn’t want his nerves to show. He has to appear strong. 

oOo

The brave marriage together. When George gets married to Pattie in 1965, Paul is his best man. He cancels his holiday to do it. And it all goes fine until he gets drunk and puts an arrow through a car window. But it’s still amazing. It’s still amazing.

oOo

They brave band conflict together. George hates shouting at Paul worse than anything else in the world, and he wants to hug his best friend and tell him it’s ok, but he just keeps going because it’s what they do and Paul is such a goddamn perfectionist sometimes, though secretly, he loves this. It’s just a part of Paul which is just a part of Paul which is just a part of Paul, and he wouldn’t change anything about Paul for anything in the world. Not for anything. Not. For. Anything.

oOo

They brave death together. After John’s murder, Paul wants to curl up into George and George wants to cry into Paul’s shoulder. They meet up more after this, with Ringo too. They treasure their time together. They know it could be one of them next.

oOo

They brave Cancer together. The last time Paul sees George before his death, he stays with him for ten hours. They hold hands. They talk about nothing and everything, and they try to avoid the subject of existence without the other. They don’t cry. Now isn’t the time for crying; it is the time for making the last moments together the best moments together and they do it well, so well; they conserve the memories, they remember the good times and the bad times, they just talk, because talking is necessary and their thoughts spill out in the form of words and their feelings sprout legs and walk from their mouths ready to embrace the world as (clichéd) phrases and smiles are exchanged and then they depart. 

oOo

Paul cries when he’s told. He takes it badly. He remembers those times as kids when he’d go round to George’s and they’d play, and he was bowled over by George’s playing and George was bowled over by his singing, though Paul didn’t like proclaiming his love for various girls with the whole of his best friend’s family there to listen. He cries and there’s no George there to mop up his tears for him because, of course, George is dead and nothing he does is ever going to change that. The only thing he can do is honour the memory of George Harrison in the best way he can. And that is what he will do.


End file.
